RONALD REAGAN (1911 - 2004) WAS 40TH PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES,REGARDED AS A KEY FIGURE IN COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE TRIUMP OF IMPROVISATION ANALYZES THE END OF COULD WAR.

January 20, 1981 - President Reagan waves from his limo during inauguration parade:The only parade known to have been canceled because of the weather was Ronald Reagan's second in 1985. It was the coldest Inauguration Day to date. The noon temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind chill temperatures were in the negatives. The freezing temperatures made proceeding with the parade dangerous.President Ronald Reagan, the nation's 40th president. In the fall of 1988, as Reagan's presidency was ending, 60 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing; just 30 percent disapproved.

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States.Born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Wilson Reagan was the second son of John Edward ("Jack") and Nelle Wilson Reagan. His parents were relatively poor, and Jack Reagan moved the family to a number of small Illinois towns trying to establish himself in business. When Ronald was nine the family moved to Dixon, Illinois, where he grew to adulthood . He attended Eureka College on an athletic scholarship, and received a job as a sports announcer for a radio station in Iowa. Reagan joined Warner Brothers Studios in 1937 under a seven year contract. He appeared in more than 50 movies, and he also served as a Screen Actors Guild president for several years. As an actor he is considered to have had a good career among B-list movies. As he aged and became interested in politics, Reagan became increasingly more conservative. In 1966, Regan ran as the Republican candidate for governor of California, and the won the election. He was re-elected in 1970 and served a second term.Reagan was not successful in winning the Republican nomination in the elections of 1968 or 1976, but he was successful in 1980. He defeated Jimmy Carter in the election, and at the age of 69, became the oldest elected president. In 1981, an assassination attempt was made by John Hinckley, Jr., but Reagan survived the attempt. During his first term, Reagan was kept busy with the Cold War, and created the Strategic Defense Initiative to develop weapons based in space to protect the United States against Soviet attacks. He also took a strong stance against labor unions as well as ordered the Granada invasion. Reagan ran for re-election in 1984 and beat Walter Mondale. President Reagan never tired of meeting people. He genuinely enjoyed campaigning, not just because he could advocate for his political positions on key issues, but mostly because he enjoyed being with people. You could see it in his eyes. There was a certain sparkle when he shook hands and exchanged a few words. He was not just “going through the motions.” He listened to what people had to say, and thought about what he could do to help. Often when he was back in his car or on Air Force One, he would turn to an aide and say: “There was a man back there who…” describing the person’s plight and asking what could be done about it.

Bruce Laingen, top diplomatic hostage during the Iran hostage crisis, speaks at the official welcome ceremony at the White House in Washington, on Jan. 27. 1981. On Jan. 20, Iran released the 52 remaining hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days.Ronald Reagan, in the first days of the new year, faced the prospect of inheriting the Iranian hostage crisis from Jimmy Carter on January 20--a development that would confront the new President with an immediate test of his get-tough foreign policy.Carter was all but ready to admit failure in his efforts to secure the release of 52 Americans now in their 15th month of captivity.

In
the 1980s,Reagan beats Carter in landslide.The former Hollywood actor and Republican governor of California Ronald Reagan is to be the next president of the United States.He has defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter in the US presidential elections by a huge majority.At the age of 69, Mr Reagan will be America's oldest president. His running mate, former head of the CIA George Bush, will be his vice-president.The Republicans took state after state in the east, south and mid-west, with results from their stronghold in the west still to come. So far Mr Reagan's electoral vote tally stands at 238 while Mr Carter's is just 35.In the last speech of his campaign last night, Mr Reagan with his wife Nancy, addressed 30,000 supporters at a car park of a shopping centre in San Diego, California.Nancy Reagan,
also grew up in Illinois. She and her husband were famously devoted to
one another. He would call her "Mommy," and when she spoke of him, he
always was "Ronnie" to her.Born
Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921, in New York, she lived in Chicago
for a time as a youngster. Her stepfather Loyal Davis was a prominent
neurosurgeon who moved the family to Chicago. Davis formally adopted her
when she was 14 years old, and she legally changed her name to Nancy
Davis.She graduated from the Girls' Latin School
of Chicago in 1939. By that time, Ronald Reagan was already in the
movies, appearing that year in the film "Code of the Secret Service."Her
best friend, Jean Wescott Marshall, told biographer Bob Colacello that
she and Nancy loved the movies.The U.S. Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) (Pub.L. 99–514, 100 Stat. 2085, enacted October 22, 1986) to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many tax shelters. Referred to as the second of the two "Reagan tax cuts" (the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 being the first), the bill was also officially sponsored by Democrats, Richard Gephardt of Missouri in the House of Representatives and Bill Bradley of New Jersey in the Senate.The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was given impetus by a detailed tax-simplification proposal from President Reagan's Treasury Department, and was designed to be tax-revenue neutral because Reagan stated that he would veto any bill that was not. Revenue neutrality was achieved by offsetting tax cuts for individuals by eliminating $60 billion annually in tax loopholes and shifting $24 billion of the tax burden from individuals to corporations by eliminating the investment tax credit, slowing depreciation of assets, and enacting a stiff alternative minimum tax on corporations.1986: US launches air strikes on LibyaAt least 100 people have died after USA planes bombed targets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Benghazi region.Around 66 American jets.Colonel Muamar Gaddafi residential compound took a direct hit that killed Hanna Gaddafi, the adopted baby daughter of the Libyan leader.President Reagan has justified the attacks by accusing Libya of direct responsibility for terrorism aimed at America, such as the bombing of La Belle discoteque in West Berlin.The attacks began soon after an increase in coded radio traffic between US ships and planes off the Libyan coast had been noticed.The fighter jets appear to have been both carrier based aircraft, operating in the Mediterranean and British based bombers which would have refuelled in mid air.

1985: President Reagan and Nancy Reagan welcome Charles and Diana .Prince Charles and Princess Diana have ended the first day of their much-vaunted trip to the USA at a gala dinner in the Washington, hosted by President Reagan and his wife Nancy.They mixed with movie stars, such as Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Tom Selleck and the singer Neil Diamond as well as politicians and businessmen.

The last time we had such an opportunity for simultaneous reform was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan joined Margaret Thatcher in leading the free world.The contrast between those two governments is interesting. Many Keynesians reckon that Reagan succeeded because he cut taxes, increased defence spending and oversaw a ballooning budget deficit.Thatcher’s first chancellor, also ushered in a long spell of unbroken growth after the 1981 budget, but he increased taxes, cut spending and shrank the deficit. Although he reformed taxes, he did not cut the overall tax burden.

Two months after Reagan’s inauguration, a deranged gunman fired a bullet that lodged three inches from the president's heart. He'd won the presidency in a landslide, and his nonchalant heroism after being wounded did nothing to detract from that luster: Reagan had walked into the emergency room under his power and cracked wise with the doctors who saved his life. Four weeks later he went to Capitol Hill for a speech that was both a celebration of his survival and a pointed exercise in power politics.Reagan was met with thunderous applause that evening, April 28, 1981, and he was clearly touched, beginning his speech by saying simply: "I have no words to express my appreciation for that greeting."He is currently undergoing emergency surgery at George Washington University Hospital but there are unconfirmed reports he walked in unaided.Five to six shots were fired as he left the Washington Hilton Hotel where he had been addressing a union convention, about one mile from the White House.A Secret Service official and a Washington policeman were also injured before the gunman was pushed to the ground by police.The president had appeared from the hotel smiling and walked towards his limousine turning momentarily to acknowledge calls from the waiting press.A burst of gunfire was then heard before the president was bundled into a bullet proof limousine and whisked away.First Lady Nancy Reagan is understood to be on her way to the hospital to visit her 70-year-old husband.The attacker is described as being in his twenties and blonde.He was pinned to the wall by secret service agents and he has now been arrested.The assassination attempt has sent shock waves around the country where memories of the murder of president John F Kennedy remain vivid.President Reagan has only been in office for 69 days and the attack leaves the running of the country in some confusion as his vice-president George Bush is currently on his way back from Texas.By the early 1960s Reagan was closely associated with the Republican Party and in 1966, he won the governorship of California. He was re-elected in 1970. In 1980, he was elected president, serving two four-year terms. Reagan presided over a period of economic growth in the 1980s, and over the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. In his final year in office, however, he visited Moscow for a summit meeting with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan's supporters credit Reagan's anti-Soviet rhetoric and increased defence spending as a key factor in bringing the Cold War to an end, because it forced the USSR to recognise it could not compete with the American-led capitalist west.While Reagan remained a popular president, he never fully recovered his former levels of support following the Iran-contra scandal of 1986 when it was revealed that aides in the National Security Council, based in the White House, were conducting a clandestine foreign policy initiative to provide military aid to the anti-Communist 'contra' Nicaraguan guerrillas - in contravention of congressional law.Reagan’s aggressive stance toward the Soviet Union became known as the Reagan Doctrine. He warned against what he and his supporters saw as the dangerous trend of tolerating the Soviets’ build-up of nuclear weapons and attempts to infiltrate Third World countries in order to spread communism. Advocating a peace through strength policy, Reagan declared that the Soviets must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards nor ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire. To do so would mean abandoning the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

President Ronald Reagan made a rememberable speech to the Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to demolish the Berlin Wall in East Germany., in one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the repressive Communist era in a divided Germany.

The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The main goal was winning the Cold War and the rollback of Communism which was achieved in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, though most disagree with whom to credit, and how much. It was characterized by a strategy of "peace through strength" and an escalation of Cold War tensions 1981–1984, followed by a warming of relations with the Soviet Union, 1981–1989.President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev Signing the INF Treaty, 1987 The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed December 8, 1987, eliminated U.S. and Soviet intermediate-and shorter-range nuclear missles and led to the elimination of more nuclear weapons. The Senate ratified the agreement the following May, and it went into effect on June 1, 1988.

President Reagan said he had irrefutable evidence that Libya was responsible for the West Berlin night club bombing on 5 April 1986 which killed two American servicemen and a Turkish woman.The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, justified Britain's involvement in the campaign by supporting America's right to self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Chart.

1986: US launches air strikes on Libya.At least 100 people have died after USA planes bombed targets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Benghazi region.Around 66 American jets, some of them flying from British bases launched an attack.The White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, has said that the strike was directed at key military sites but reports suggest that missiles also hit Bin Ashur, a densely populated suburb in the capital.Colonel Muamar Gaddafi residential compound took a direct hit that killed Hanna Gaddafi, the adopted baby daughter of the Libyan leader.President Reagan has justified the attacks by accusing Libya of direct responsibility for terrorism aimed at America, such as the bombing of La Belle discoteque in West Berlin .President Reagan made a TV address to the American people two hours after the attack.In it he said : "When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I'm in this office."He argued that America was exercising its right to self defence as defined by Article 51 of the UN charter.The presidential spokesman, Larry Speakes, said, "US forces have executed a series of carefully planned air strikes against terrorist targets in Libya."He added: "Every effort has been made to avoid hitting civilian targets."The attacks began soon after an increase in coded radio traffic between US ships and planes off the Libyan coast had been noticed.The fighter jets appear to have been both carrier based aircraft, operating in the Mediterranean and British based bombers which would have refuelled in mid air.The Americans hit the harbour's naval academy, the capital's military airport and army barracks.Tripoli's embassy area and residential districts also suffered extensive damage.The Tripoli central hospital and two other medical centres say they have treated hundreds of injured people, including a number of Greeks, Italians and Yugoslavs.Mobs of angry survivors have taken to the streets shouting: "Down, down USA. Death to all Americans."There are also fears that Britain may be subject to terrorist attacks because some of its involvement in the raids.The Syrian based terrorist group, Arab Revolutionary Cells, has announced on Lebanese radio that it will target both British and American interests.

Presidemnt Ronald Reagan address to the Ministerial Meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Bali, Indonesia May 1, 1986.

Mr. Vice President [Salvador Laurel of the Philippines], ASEAN Foreign
Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate this opportunity to
discuss with you the wide range of issues that are of mutual concern to
our peoples. Since coming to the Presidency, I have stressed enterprise,
not redistribution, as the best means of improving the economic
well-being of any country. I've emphasized the importance of free people
cooperating together to meet the serious challenges that are loose in
the world today. Our talks, then, have particular relevance. Since its
founding in 1967, ASEAN has been a shining example of enterprise and
cooperation.It was my honor earlier to have met and conferred with President
Soeharto. Our discussions were friendly and carried out with the mutual
respect one would expect between the leaders of two great nations. I am
confident that our discussions will be in the same spirit -- I mean our
discussions here. And I'm looking forward to hearing your views.You know, there is a story back in the United States about two men out
in the woods on a hike. They saw a large bear coming over the hill,
directly toward them. And one of them sat down, took off his knapsack,
reached in, got out a pair of tennis shoes, and started to put them on.
And the other one looked and says, ``You don't think that putting on
those tennis shoes -- you're going to be able to outrun that bear?'' He
said, ``I don't have to outrun the bear; I only have to outrun you.''
[Laughter] Well, if there is a bear coming over the hill, unlike that
hiker, the American people can be counted on to stick with our friends.
We won't put on running shoes. [Laughter] Standing together, we can make
certain the people of this region remain free and secure.Today there is an ever-increasing recognition that our futures are
linked in so many ways. Two ASEAN members, Thailand and the Philippines,
are treaty allies. All of you are friends with whom we work closely.
The United States sees ASEAN's unity and decisiveness as an example to
other free people. The ASEAN collective voice of responsible
international behavior has been amplified throughout the world, and I am
here to listen to you. Support for and cooperation with ASEAN is a
linchpin of American Pacific policy.Nowhere has your leadership been more inspiring than in molding the
world's response to the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia.
After the collapse of South Vietnam, ASEAN took a strong stand against
Vietnamese expansionism. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, you
recognized the threat and acted quickly. The strength of your commitment
and the direction you've provided on this vital issue have been much
admired by the United States. In 1981 ASEAN organized the International
Conference on Kampuchea. We continue to support the basic principles for
the settlement of the Cambodian situation agreed upon at that
conference: the complete withdrawal of Vietnamese forces under
international supervision; the restoration of Cambodian independence,
sovereignty, and territorial integrity; a Cambodian government chosen in
free elections under international auspices.ASEAN's efforts are consistent with American desires to bring peaceful
resolution to the tragic cycle of events that has plagued the Cambodian
people. We continue to believe a negotiated settlement with ASEAN is in
Vietnam's interest and in the best interest of everyone in the region.
We are prepared to participate constructively in a regional settlement
and call upon Vietnam to answer your reasonable proposals for
negotiations. The contrast between the economic conditions prevailing in
Vietnam and ASEAN is striking. Their continued occupation of Cambodia
is simply widening this gap each day. Cambodia is, of course, something
we will discuss further this afternoon along with other issues of
regional and global importance.In approaching our discussions, let me just say the United States
considers itself a Pacific rim country, with a heavy stake in the
outcome of events in this region. The Philippines, for example, is a
country with which the United States has deep and abiding ties. We hope
that recent events there will increase the chances of unity through
democracy and enable the Philippine people, to a greater degree, to join
in the economic advances so apparent throughout the region. Before I
left Washington, we announced a Philippine aid package to help our
Filipino friends during this difficult period. This region's economic
stature continues to grow. Collectively, ASEAN is now the United States
fifth largest trading partner. Our trade with you, as with all of east
Asia and the Pacific, is growing faster than with any other region of
the world. When this organization was founded back in 1967, our annual
trade was running at less than $2 billion. In 1985 U.S.-ASEAN trade
reached $23.5 billion.As you are all aware, there is growing pressure in many industrial
countries to restrict trade. Well, I'm certain you agree that any
substantial cut in the commerce between nations would be an unmitigated
disaster. It's only right that we are meeting prior to the 12th economic
summit in Tokyo. One of the messages I am bringing to the economic
summit concerns the necessity of keeping open the avenues of world
trade. This is something that the United States and ASEAN should work
closely together to achieve. It is fundamental to the well-being of both
our peoples. As part of my preparation for the economic summit, I'm
also looking forward to hearing today your thoughts on issues that the
summit conferees should keep in mind as concerns of the countries of
ASEAN. We are pleased, as a Pacific rim partner, to take your ideas to
the meetings in Tokyo.Our progress has been based on freeing -- not restricting -- man's
commerce, energy, and creativity. A strong commitment to the principles
of freedom and independence, and a fundamental trust in free enterprise
and open markets, have propelled ASEAN countries far beyond what others
would have thought possible. The decisionmakers of your countries have
proven their wisdom and good sense. But I have a favor to ask. I think
the leaders of the developing world could use your advice. You know,
give a man a fish and he won't be hungry today, but teach him how to
fish and he'll never be hungry again. You can do a great service by
telling others, especially those trying to improve their lot, how to
follow the path of personal incentives to economic progress.I would like to mention the humanitarian issue of great personal concern
to me, my administration, and the American people. It is about our men
still missing in action from the Vietnam war. Vietnam's recent, apparent
attempt to link this last vestige of the war to other issues is a great
disappointment to us. We were pleased with the evident progress over
the past year. It indicated Hanoi had agreed with us that resolution of
this issue was in their national interest. We appreciate all that you
have done to help us on this, and we hope that Vietnam will soon resume
these important talks.In closing, I would like to say the United States is proud to be a
partner with ASEAN in the quest for peace, freedom, and greater
prosperity. I am looking forward to our meeting this afternoon and to
the continuing close relationship between our governments and people.
Thank you all, and God bless you.